Small aircraft, when they are not in use and stored on the ground, should be securely tied down to prevent their being moved or damaged in a high wind. Sometimes commercial airports provide permanent tie downs which are secured to the ground. More frequently, though, an aircraft owner must provide his own tie down device. This is especially true when landing an aircraft at a remote landing field far from an airport.
The most common type of portable tie down anchor used by most small craft pilots is an auger-type stake that screws into the ground. These devices suffer from a number of drawbacks, most notably that they are difficult to deploy and they do not always hold securely. Auger-type stakes are frequently difficult to screw into the ground and are nearly impossible to use in hard or rocky soil. Furthermore, in soft, sandy or muddy soil auger-type stakes do not always provide a secure hold since they only engage an area of the ground as large as the diameter of the auger itself. Another disadvantage to auger-type tie down stakes is that they tend to pick up large amounts of dirt when they are removed from the ground, and their complicated geometry makes them difficult to clean.